Monster High 3: Where There's a Wolf, There's a Way Page 15

  Frankie snapped open her amp purse and handed him her makeup bag. “Here.”

  “How convenient,” he mumbled, embarrassed. And he had every reason to be. Swapping spit in public was one thing, but makeup?

  “Maybe you should go to the bathroom,” she suggested.

  Before he could answer, they were struck by a second blast of heat. Billy accidentally wiped away the other side of his forehead. Frankie, feeling all gooey, assumed she resembled a chunk of melted vanilla-mint fudge. The shock in Billy’s semi-floating eyes confirmed her suspicion.

  “What’s going on?” Frankie asked, reaching for her neck seams.

  Billy grabbed her hand before she could tug. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She considered fighting for one more song, but she had promised her parents she wouldn’t put herself in harm’s way. Even at a Lady Gaga concert, cavorting in public with green skin and a semi-invisible friend had harm’s way written all over it.

  Like Cinderellas at midnight, they began racing for the privacy of their pumpkin. But their pumpkin was a public train.

  Heads tucked, they hurried past girls who wore glasses covered in cigarettes, soda cans as curlers, bras made of caution tape, and see-through lace jumpsuits. They charged up the steps and ran out the exit. Suddenly everything was fluorescent bright. Leaving the pulsating venue for the stillness of the popcorn-scented corridors was jarring—like being unplugged mid-amp.

  Everywhere, vendors peddling Gaga merchandise called to them, tempting them as they passed. Still, Frankie refused to look. The smell of popcorn had been replaced with burned caramel as the tanning solution dripped off Billy’s body and onto hers. She considered lifting her gaze to assess the damage to his body, but she heard footsteps all around them. Some even sounded like they were coming toward them. Frankie and Billy ran faster and—

  Oof!

  Two male bodies collided into them. One of them was wearing mega-tread hiking boots, the laces singed by fire.

  Frankie heard a boy’s voice. “Whoa, dude, you guys look freaky.”

  Eyes lowered, she clenched her fists. She considered shocking him so they could escape.

  But then the second boy spoke. “Stein?”

  She sparked immediately.

  “Brett?” She lifted her eyes, and sparks flew again.

  “Come on, Frankie,” Billy said, reaching for her. “We should go.”

  Frankie agreed. They needed to leave. So why am I still standing here?

  “Dude, did my hiccups do that?” Heath asked, his red hair and lashes singed.

  Billy looked down at his fading chest. He fastened the top button of his stained shirt with undetectable hands.

  “Who’s this guy?” Brett asked Frankie, more disturbed by what he could see than what he couldn’t.

  “Who do you think it is?” Billy said, answering for her.

  “No way! Phaedin, is that you?” Brett’s denim-blue eyes widened. “Frankie, is this who you moved on to?” He didn’t sound arrogant, just sad.

  “Yes,” Billy blurted.

  “No!” Frankie blurted, louder. “I mean, that’s not what I mean. I—” She paused, wishing she were disappearing. What do I mean?

  A security guard riding a Segway was zooming toward them.

  “We need to get you guys out of here,” Brett said. “Heath’s sister is meeting us out front with the car.”

  He unzipped his navy sweatshirt, wrapped it around Frankie’s shoulders, and lifted the hood to cover her face. “Billy, take off your shirt and—”

  “What about his hair?” Heath pointed out.

  “It’s okay,” Billy said, backing away. “A few seconds under the sink and it’ll wash right out.” His stained shirt fell to the floor. Next his pants, socks, and shoes, in a trail that led to the men’s room.

  The security guard rolled past, eyeing them suspiciously.

  “You guys should go,” Billy called, popping out his brown contact lenses.

  “Billy, wait!” Frankie sniffed. Don’t be upset? Don’t hate me? I never meant to hurt you? Can we still be friends? Will you ever forgive me? I wish I could change the way I feel? You deserve someone better? It hurts me more than it hurts you? It all sounded so cliché. “You can’t just stay here. Come with us. Please!”

  “And miss the chance to sneak inside Lady Gaga’s dressing room? Forget it.”

  Frankie giggled through her tears. Why can’t I make myself like him?

  “Go!” urged the floating brown hair. “If you leave now, you can probably make Clawdeen’s party.”

  Brett tugged Frankie’s arm.

  “Are you going to be okay?” she tried one last time.

  “Better than okay,” Billy called, opening the bathroom door. “Did you see those hot backup dancers? Some of them might need help changing after the show.”

  “Killer.” Heath chuckled.

  Guilt gripped Frankie’s heart space and squeezed. “Tonight was voltage,” she said, meaning it.

  “I know,” Billy called. “Just no sparks.”

  As guilt got ready to squeeze again, Brett took Frankie’s hand and pulled her away. She began melting all over again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  HAIR APPARENT

  Harriet had to park in the Steins’ cul-de-sac because her driveway was full. Not that Clawdeen minded. Showing up late to her own party was bad enough, but in a beat-up utility vehicle? Fur-get about it.

  “Melody delivered like Domino’s!” she gushed as they stepped onto Radcliffe Way. It was warmer here than at the inn. Or did it feel that way simply because she was about to be reunited with the people she loved?

  “Our street looks like a used-car lot!” giggled Lala, black eyes wide with wonder.

  “Just think,” Harriet mused. “All these kids are here to celebrate you.”

  “See?” Clawdeen beamed. “I told you it would be okay.”

  Still, as Harriet pulled her daughter close, stubble poked through her black blouse and irritated Clawdeen’s bare shoulders. It was another reminder of the risk they were taking. Not only with the party but with the rounding moon. But why think about that when the electronic beat of “The Time” by the Black Eyed Peas was pulsating from the Wolfs’ backyard?

  “Woo-hoo!” howled Clawdeen. She and Lala raised their hands over their heads and began dancing and singing their way up the block.

  “I had the time of my life, and I never felt this way before…”

  Clawdeen couldn’t have been happier. The closer they got, the more she wanted to run. But Cleo always said, “Guests of honor don’t run; they appear.” So Clawdeen and Lala decided to run and appear excited.

  “Whoa,” said Clawdeen, stopping. Dozens of luminary candle bags had been placed on her lawn, lighting a path to the tent in the backyard. Clawdeen recognized them immediately from the de Niles’ New Year’s Eve party, and she felt tremendous gratitude to Cleo (well, her staff) for all the hard work. The scene looked like one of those elegant celebrity affairs featured in InStyle magazine.

  “It’s beautiful,” Harriet said, admiring her flickering front yard.

  Suddenly, a tightening sensation gripped Clawdeen’s scalp… held… and then released. Another growth spurt. Her auburn curls dropped, bounced, and then settled below her shoulders. Luckily, her mother had been too busy admiring the lights to notice. If she had, they’d be speeding back to the Hideout.

  “Who’s ready?” Clawdeen quickly asked.

  Lala flashed a fang-tabulous smile, and they all linked arms.

  Rounding the side of her house in a DIY dress and sparkling booties, guided by the luminaries and the sound of Bruno Mars’s latest single, Clawdeen was having a major Dorothy moment. That Kansas normie had gotten one thing right: There’s no place like home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  PAIN IN THE SASS

  The golden tent cast a royal glow on the forty-plus guests as DJ Duhman spun things sweaty.

  His gear consisted of an iPod
touch, a thin black wire, a headset microphone, and refrigerator-sized speakers. His “booth”—a bronze-plated, hieroglyphic-covered tomb with black-lacquered lion’s paws for legs—had been relegated to the far corner of the tent because Cleo swore he smelled like bananas. And apparently Clawdeen couldn’t stand bananas.

  I hope she likes Egyptian-themed parties and Middle Eastern munchies….

  “We have another contest coming up in T-minus five minutes,” announced Duhman. Rainbow-colored dreadlocks hung slack around his pasty face like deflated balloons as he scrolled through his playlist, fading out “The Time” and turning up Bruno Mars.

  Melody sat alone in a gold-wrapped chair at a gold-wrapped table observing the scene. Dancing was the second-to-last thing she felt like doing tonight. Losing Jackson was the last. At least everyone else was having fun. Julia Phelps was cutting a reed with Haylee and the rest of Bekka’s ex-friends. Three RAD guys she recognized from the meetings at Frankie’s house had formed a conga line with a trio of normie girls from the Lactose-Free Zone. And bangle-clanging arms waved through the air as bodies dressed in colorful dry-clean-only fabrics collided peacefully. Granted, most of the RADs were no-shows, and those who were there wore disguises. But, still, for a town full of supposed “closed-minded normies,” everyone seemed to blend like polyester and cotton.

  Cleo finger-pulled Mason Unger off the dance floor. The leggy basketball player plodded behind her dutifully, like a Great Dane being walked by a child. Ten minutes with the exotic beauty and he was already wrapped—just like the jewel garland around her bangs, the gold silk around her legs, and the ruby-red strapless mini around her curves.

  Melody raced past the mounted photo exhibit of Clawdeen through the ages, managing to stop the couple before they slithered out of the tent. “Any word?” she asked, shouting over the blaring music.

  Cleo’s royal blue heels screeched to a stop by the gift table. “If I had word, do you think I’d be with—” She tilted her head toward Mason.

  “Not from Deuce,” Melody snipped. “From Clawdeen. I hope she’s okay. She hasn’t answered any of my texts.”

  Cleo smirked. “Don’t get your feathers in a ruffle,” she said, taking an obvious jab at Melody’s feather-covered dress and matching hair adornments. “Deenie’s not going to let anything keep her away from this party.”

  “Well, she’s over an hour late, and I think some of the guys are starting to leave.”

  “Ka,” Cleo said, dismissing them with a wave of her bejeweled hand. “That’s what guys do. They leave. Get used to it. I did.” She tugged her Great Dane, and off they walked.

  I can’t get used to it! I have to keep trying. Unlike you, I’m not going to give up. No matter how many times I fail. At least not until tomorrow, Melody wanted to scream. But her emotional breakdown would have to wait. Finding Jackson was still the priority, even though it seemed like he didn’t want to be found.

  The plan was to deliver her message of acceptance during a birthday toast to Clawdeen. After a few words about the guest of honor, Melody would persuade everyone to live in harmony and to fight to keep Ms. J at Merston.

  Cleo had told her that Mr. D’s planes had to wait until the airport was closed before taking off, so they could fly under the radar. According to Melody’s research, the last legal flight wasn’t scheduled to depart for three more hours. There was still time to manipulate the crowd, get them to charge McNary and stop the plane. If Clawdeen ever showed…

  Melody gripped her roiling stomach. This edge-of-her-seat lifestyle wasn’t agreeing with her digestion. Nor was the onion-raisin-cinnamon smell wafting from Beb and Hasina’s serving trays.

  “All right, party people, who’s ready for another contest?” asked DJ Duhman.

  “Woo-hoo!” answered the flush-faced crowd. All the guests except a six-pack of boys who were hiding out by the photo exhibit assured the DJ they were up for it.

  “Ha! I love it! O-kayyy. Ladies, go out there and find a guy who turns! Your! Head!”

  “Whip My Hair” began thumping from the speakers. Girls started pulling elastics and bobby pins from their updos. By the time the lyrics kicked in, they were speed-swinging their locks Willow Smith–style. A bit more force and the tent would have blown over.

  Melody couldn’t help wondering what she’d be doing if Jackson were there. Since neither was really one for whipping of any kind, they probably would have been laughing on the sidelines as dizzy contestants lost their balance and bashed into one another. Either that or—

  “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!” chanted the six-pack.

  Clawdeen! She made it!

  The sooner Melody greeted the woman of the hour, the sooner she could make her toast and stop Ms. J’s plane from taking off. Her motives were slightly self-serving, but only in the short term. Long term, her push to unite Salem would benefit them all.

  Melody waved Cleo in from the elm just outside the tent. “She’s here!”

  The mummy flashed a wait-a-second finger. She was on the phone, pacing back and forth while Mason leaned against the gold-wrapped trunk, picking his nails.

  “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”

  Despite Clawdeen’s arrival, the dance floor was still packed. Melody waved again to Cleo, who responded by pointing at her phone and then flashing a thumbs-up. Deuce had finally called—and Cleo’s smile was so bright that it shined a floodlight on the fact that Jackson had not.

  “Don’t let haters keep me off my grind, keep my head up and I know I’ll be fine…”

  The song was almost over. All Melody had to do was greet Clawdeen and get everyone’s attention before the DJ played another one. Then she could give her speech and still have plenty of time to get everyone down to McNary to stop Ms. J’s plane.

  With renewed urgency, she hurried for the chanting six-pack of normies. She quickly realized they were part of the fraud-squad that had sabotaged her petition with fake names. But Melody held her tongue. She’d lecture them soon enough.

  “ ’Scuse me,” she insisted, forcing her way into their tight huddle. But the auburn-haired beauty was nowhere to be found. Not the real one, at least. The photographic version, however, was everywhere, mounted on a gigantic canvas. Clawdeen as a bald newborn, a thumb-sucking baby, a big-eared toddler, dressed up as a superhero, a tap dancer, a tool-belt-wearing tween. Each picture was more adorable than the next. At least, the photos had been adorable before the boys arrived.

  But the pen that was once tied to the guestbook had been used to draw long fingernails on Clawdeen’s hands. Pointy teeth jutted from her mouth, and scribbles of hair covered her face.

  Melody swallowed hard to avoid barfing up her baba ghanoush. How could she have let this happen?

  “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!” shouted the boys. They had moved on to the photo of Clawdeen at her middle school graduation. A guy in a pit-stained polo had drawn a full moon over her head and was now adding a squirrel hanging from her mouth.

  Cleo finally came running over, a pair of emerald earrings clenched in her fist. “Where is she?” she shouted, phone still to her ear. And then she saw the photos. “Oh. My. Geb,” she muttered, disconnecting the call.

  Melody looked away in shame. She knew exactly how these normies felt about RADs. Their fake petition signatures had made that perfectly clear. Still, she’d persuaded them to come. Not to please Clawdeen but to please herself. Not to save Ms. J but to save her relationship with Jackson.

  Melody couldn’t stand by and watch any longer. She ordered the guys to stop. But they couldn’t hear her above the voice of the DJ, who was urging the contestants to “make like the dog and whippet!”

  “Freeze!” she tried again. But the guys kept drawing. The only ones who froze were the three people standing behind them.

  Mrs. Wolf, Lala, and Clawdeen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  BIG PACK ATTACK

  “My pictures!” Harriet shouted, her orange-brown eyes searching for someone to blame.

  Clawdeen didn’t have to
see the ink smudges on Colton Tate’s fingertips to know that he was responsible. He, along with Darren, Tucker, Rory, Nick, and Trevor, had been tormenting her ever since she joined their precious Merston High track team. She’d never put them on the invite list. Why were they even there? They blew spitballs in her hair, “accidentally” bumped into her, and even taped crude sketches of male anatomy to her locker. Cleo insisted they had a six-way crush on her, but Clawdeen knew better. As Coach Paige liked to say, she ran faster than a toddler’s nose. And that left the boys feeling more disposable than tissue. But why couldn’t they have let it go? Just for one night? Instead, they turned away and faced the crowded dance floor, feigning innocence with wide eyes, casual whistles, and hands jammed into the front pockets of their jeans.

  “Oh my Geb, I know exactly how you feel,” Cleo said, pulling Clawdeen into an amber-scented hug. “You’ve been waiting and waiting for this party, and even though it’s super raging and the decorations are golden, something like this”—she gestured to the photo display—“had to happen and ruin your big moment.”

  Clawdeen hugged Cleo harder. Yes, that’s exactly how I feel.

  “It’s like me and Deuce. I’ve been waiting and waiting for him to call me, and when he finally did, I saw your messed-up pictures and accidentally hung up on him. So my big moment was ruined too.”

  Clawdeen pulled away and glared into her friend’s topaz-colored eyes. Deuce? You’re making this about Deuce? her raised eyebrows asked.

  Catching on, Cleo bit her bottom lip apologetically and opened her palm. “Earrings?”

  Two spectacular pear-shaped hunks of emerald, wrapped in gold wire, winked their good-time intentions. But Clawdeen looked away. The jewels were far too fabulous for her mood.

  Beneath her beautiful DIY wrap dress, with its iridescent sheen and black metallic slash, a kaleidoscope of emotions revolved and collided. Rage smashed into frustration; frustration struck devastation; devastation hit regret; then regret teamed up with shame and sucker punched Clawdeen in the heart. All she could do was stare at her defiled baby photos and fight the urge to cry.